2 Kings 4:41

4:41 He said, “Get some flour.” Then he threw it into the pot and said, “Now pour some out for the men so they may eat.” ¹  There was no longer anything harmful in the pot.

2 Kings 6:6

6:6 The prophet ²  asked, “Where did it drop in?” When he showed him the spot, Elisha ³  cut off a branch, threw it in at that spot, and made the ax head float.

Exodus 15:25-26

15:25 He cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him ⁴  a tree. ⁵  When Moses ⁶  threw it into the water, the water became safe to drink. There the Lord ⁷  made for them ⁸  a binding ordinance, ⁹  and there he tested ¹⁰  them. 15:26 He said, “If you will diligently obey ¹¹  the Lord your God, and do what is right ¹²  in his sight, and pay attention ¹³  to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, then all ¹⁴  the diseases ¹⁵  that I brought on the Egyptians I will not bring on you, for I, the Lord, am your healer.” ¹⁶ 

Leviticus 2:13

2:13 Moreover, you must season every one of your grain offerings with salt; you must not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be missing from your grain offering ¹⁷  – on every one of your grain offerings you must present salt.

Matthew 5:11

5:11 “Blessed are you when people ¹⁸  insult you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil things about you falsely ¹⁹  on account of me.

Mark 9:50

9:50 Salt ²⁰  is good, but if it loses its saltiness, ²¹  how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other.”

John 9:6

9:6 Having said this, ²²  he spat on the ground and made some mud ²³  with the saliva. He ²⁴  smeared the mud on the blind man’s ²⁵  eyes

[4:41]  ¹ tn Or “and let them eat.”

[6:6]  ² tn Heb “man of God” (also in v. 9).

[6:6]  ³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[15:25]  ⁴ tn The verb is וַיּוֹרֵהוּ (vayyorehu, “and he showed him”). It is the Hiphil preterite from יָרָה (yarah), which has a basic meaning of “to point, show, direct.” It then came to mean “to teach”; it is the verb behind the noun “Law” (תּוֹרָה, torah).

[15:25]  ⁵ tn Or “a [piece of] wood” (cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV, TEV, CEV); NLT “a branch.”

[15:25]  ⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[15:25]  ⁷ tn Heb “there he”; the referent (the Lord) is supplied for clarity.

[15:25]  ⁸ tn Heb “for him” (referring to Israel as a whole).

[15:25]  ⁹ tn This translation interprets the two nouns as a hendiadys: “a statute and an ordinance” becomes “a binding ordinance.”

[15:25]  ¹⁰ tn The verb נִסָּהוּ (nissahu, “and he tested him [them]”) is from the root נָסָה (nasah). The use of this word in the Bible indicates that there is question, doubt, or uncertainty about the object being tested.

[15:26]  ¹¹ tn The construction uses the infinitive absolute and the imperfect tense of שָׁמַע (shama’). The meaning of the verb is idiomatic here because it is followed by “to the voice of Yahweh your God.” When this is present, the verb is translated “obey.” The construction is in a causal clause. It reads, “If you will diligently obey.” Gesenius points out that the infinitive absolute in a conditional clause also emphasizes the importance of the condition on which the consequence depends (GKC 342-43 §113.o).

[15:26]  ¹² tn The word order is reversed in the text: “and the right in his eyes you do,” or, “[if] you do what is right in his eyes.” The conditional idea in the first clause is continued in this clause.

[15:26]  ¹³ tn Heb “give ear.” This verb and the next are both perfect tenses with the vav (ו) consecutive; they continue the sequence of the original conditional clause.

[15:26]  ¹⁴ tn The substantive כָּל־ (kol, “all of”) in a negative clause can be translated “none of.”

[15:26]  ¹⁵ sn The reference is no doubt to the plagues that Yahweh has just put on them. These will not come on God’s true people. But the interesting thing about a conditional clause like this is that the opposite is also true – “if you do not obey, then I will bring these diseases.”

[15:26]  ¹⁶ tn The form is רֹפְאֶךָ (rofÿ’ekha), a participle with a pronominal suffix. The word is the predicate after the pronoun “I”: “I [am] your healer.” The suffix is an objective genitive – the Lord heals them.

[2:13]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “from upon your grain offering.”

[5:11]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “when they insult you.” The third person pronoun (here implied in the verb ὀνειδίσωσιν [ojneidiswsin]) has no specific referent, but refers to people in general.

[5:11]  ¹⁹ tc Although ψευδόμενοι (yeudomenoi, “bearing witness falsely”) could be a motivated reading, clarifying that the disciples are unjustly persecuted, its lack in only D it sy^s Tert does not help its case. Since the Western text is known for numerous free alterations, without corroborative evidence the shorter reading must be judged as secondary.

[9:50]  ²⁰ sn Salt was used as seasoning or fertilizer (BDAG 41 s.v. ἅλας a), or as a preservative. If salt ceased to be useful, it was thrown away. With this illustration Jesus warned about a disciple who ceased to follow him.

[9:50]  ²¹ sn The difficulty of this saying is understanding how salt could lose its saltiness since its chemical properties cannot change. It is thus often assumed that Jesus was referring to chemically impure salt, perhaps a natural salt which, when exposed to the elements, had all the genuine salt leached out, leaving only the sediment or impurities behind. Others have suggested the background of the saying is the use of salt blocks by Arab bakers to line the floor of their ovens: Under the intense heat these blocks would eventually crystallize and undergo a change in chemical composition, finally being thrown out as unserviceable. A saying in the Talmud (b. Bekhorot 8b) attributed to R. Joshua ben Chananja (ca. a.d. 90), when asked the question “When salt loses its flavor, how can it be made salty again?” is said to have replied, “By salting it with the afterbirth of a mule.” He was then asked, “Then does the mule (being sterile) bear young?” to which he replied: “Can salt lose its flavor?” The point appears to be both are impossible. The saying, while admittedly late, suggests that culturally the loss of flavor by salt was regarded as an impossibility. Genuine salt can never lose its flavor. In this case the saying by Jesus here may be similar to Matt 19:24, where it is likewise impossible for the camel to go through the eye of a sewing needle.

[9:6]  ²² tn Grk “said these things.”

[9:6]  ²³ tn Or “clay” (moistened earth of a clay-like consistency). The textual variant preserved in the Syriac text of Ephraem’s commentary on the Diatessaron (“he made eyes from his clay”) probably arose from the interpretation given by Irenaeus in Against Heresies: “that which the Artificer, the Word, had omitted to form in the womb, he then supplied in public.” This involves taking the clay as an allusion to Gen 2:7, which is very unlikely.

[9:6]  ²⁴ tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, the conjunction καί (kai) was replaced by a third person pronoun and a new sentence started here in the translation.

[9:6]  ²⁵ tn Grk “on his.”